“My name is Idi Amin Dada! That’s two I’s, a D, and a gun HaHa!”
Can’t remember where I heard that one.
If I believed in a burning Hell, he would get my vote for admission. Hell, I’d even contribute to the ticket price!
Thank you very hard.
Warning: No comment on minega but if you’re in work you may want to dodge that link. I got ACCESS DENIED probably because it contains hatespeech.
As for Amin. I wish there was a hell so that fucker could roast.
Here is the thread in which there were severe chastisements against those who “celebrated” Thurmond’s death. It is, according to a number of posters to that thread, horrible and disgusting to be happy that anyone has died no matter how awful a person they may have been in life.
I don’t see the same parade of the indignant trooping through this thread wagging their fingers at those who are saying exactly the same things (in some cases word-for-word) about Idi Amin that got them spitting tacks when said about Thurmond.
I find that odd.
“[L]argely seen as a mono-racial entity” by whom? As you protest sweeping generalizations, you simultaneously make them. Rather dilutes your often well informed messages, old bean.
My family was entertaining Johannes Massai, nephew of Ethiopia’s prime minister, back in the early 1960s. I’ve corresponded with and had many friends from around the African continent and cook some of its dishes as well. I celebrated the downfall of South Africa’s disgusting apartheid and have had to educate many people I know about the Hutu and Tutsi slaughter.
Collounsbury, your incessant railing turns what could be truly important mentoring on your part into a one-trick-pony act.
Nah, the cites OK. I.T. must have screwed up at your place.
Anyway, here is a sample of the speech. The end actually.
**“Thank you very hard an we shall collide everywhere else in internal.”
When the Queen later asked the journalists present what on earth Amin had said, they replied that it was in a language similar to English, but that was all they could say. "**
Cowgirl, fuck off. I grow tired of your schtick. Every time I read one of your posts, it is a kneejerk accusation at somebody. This is the first time it was directed at me, but it is annoying no matter who it is directed at.
Collounsbury, I can be more civil to you than I was just to cowgirl; let me address something specific.
Judging by the above, it seems that you agree with me rather than cowgirl. I was specifically addressing the reputation of an entire continent. The reputation. Yes, it’s a big place with some idyllic parts, but the OP states “the reputation of Africa”. If 50% of the continent is down the crapper, it makes the whole place look bad. Therefore, it seems as if you agree with me. The place has the reputation of “not a happy continent” (to put it mildly) where a good number of the nations are doing absolutely terribly, as you have acknowledged. To talk of generalization being a bad thing is a bit thick headed in this case. A reputation is a generalization.
Cowgirl read far too much into my post, and I fear she may have dragged you a bit down that idiotic, jerky-kneed path.
Zenster, I am familiar with the oft-pitted collounsbury. The windbag does not offer important mentoring, especially not here. It’s the same old “generalizations are a bad thing” song and dance we see everyday on this board. There’s an element of truth to that position, of course, but sometimes it’s just being argumentative - especially when applied to what would be better described as “grouping”. Hell man, it was your grouping Uganda and “the image of Africa” that started this whole mess :).
Yojimbo…
You have a filter that forbids you from reading anything that might have hate speech? Dammn, thats tough! Though honetsly the speeches were pretty lame. To be honest, i didnt know those kind of filters even existed! Ive always thought of filters vis.a.vis booty, but hate speech filters…now that is interesting.
As for Amin, his family had appealed to the Ugandan government to allow him to return, but there is fat chance of that. I agree the bastard deserves a vey slow death.
Nothing can be taught without generalizations.
Fer chrissakes. How is what I said “a racial explanation”?
is what I said and I will stand by it. I gave you an example of your ignorance (the sex-with-a-virgin will cure AIDS myth) because I thought that was what the board was for; Coll explained why that’s somewhat hateful. I didn’t challenge you directly on the rest of your post (“pygmie eating child warriors,” “man-made famine”) but it was just as worthless. And your response is profanity? And I’m the knee-jerker?
And what regional misunderstanding are you talking about? That Africans have brought about the AIDs crisis, as well as famine and war, by themselves?
This may be the reputation that has penetrated your own skull: please don’t try to pass this off as anything other than posturing.
Letsee some examples of those kneejerk accusations. I don’t believe I accused you of anything - there is a difference between spouting racism and being racist. You are no more racist than me, or than anyone else. But I stand by my assertion that what you said, by painting an entire continent with the broad brush of (blissfully) ignorant generalization, is racist.
Zenster is right, nothing can be taught without generalizations. But we must remain aware of the limits of these generalizations, and that they have the power to hurt as well as to help.
What does it matter? Because someone states their belief/opinion/thoughts on a subject, they must forevermore restate it whenever it comes up? But I knew someone would bring it up. And I knew it would be in a poking-with-a-stick sort of way.
For the record, I don’t think people should take joy in someone’s death. Not even a rotten, evil scumbag. I’m not going to argue about it, so I guess I shouldn’t even have bothered posting this, but I couldn’t help myself. I guess I just wanted you to know that I still stand by what I said in the other thread. You seemed to really want someone to respond about it, so I figured I’d oblige.
I’m not sure if you expect people to recant their opinions on the matter, or post the same exact stuff they did in the Thurmond thread, or what, but perhaps “been there, done that” would be a fitting resolution to this conflict you seem to be so bent on rehashing.
Besides, the guy hasn’t even died yet. (See, as you asked, I never mentioned that Amin’s reign of terror was unmatched by Thurmond’s and I didn’t even ask for a body count of all the people each of them slaughtered so we could compare. Yay me ;).)
Could you expand on this a little? Because as it is now, it makes absolutely no sense at all. I wasn’t previously aware that someone could spout racism without actually being a racist. How does that work?
And I, too, am curious about the almost total absence of the “Every human life is sacred” brigade. If a principle is worth standing up for once, it’s worth standing up for a thousand times. Getting all indignant about Strom but letting Idi slide smacks of hypocrisy to me.
Miller, a person can spout racist slogans without being a racist. It only requires for you to do something even more vile than being a racist. You need only be so ignorant that you do not even think out the drivel you are spewing.
cowgirl said:
quote:
WOW. where to start. This kind of hateful ignorance and thinly-veiled racism may have something more to do with the negative image of Africa than any one of its dictators.
**
Well, actually, no, you don’t. Generalizing about Africa as a whole (or a hole) isn’t racism, thinly veiled or otherwise, since every “race” lives in Africa, sometimes in the same country. If I say, “Africa is a screwed-up mess,” would my racism be directed against Egyptians? Sudanese? Congolese? South Africans? But, of course, you know this. I see in a later post that you make reference to “sub saharan Africa.” While sub saharan Africa is, I suppose, largely “black,” the original comment was directed to Africa as a whole.
**
The sad fact of the matter is that the “bright spots” in Africa are only bright in comparison to the stygian darkness of the rest of the continent. Take, for example, Senegal. While Senegal may be better off than many other places in Africa, it still has a 48% unemployment rate and a 40% literacy rate. This can only be counted a “success” in the sense that they don’t have a 48% unemployment rate and gangs of crazed thugs roaming the countryside lopping off people’s hands at random. On all objective measures (e.g. GDP per capita, literacy, unemployment) Bangladesh is doing better than Senegal.
Look at one of Africa’s biggest successees, Botswana. Botswana, by dint of sound policies and not much else, has transformed itself from one of the poorest countries in the world to a middle income country (per capita income of about 8k) with one of the highest and most consistent growth rates in the world. But at least one out of three Botswanans has HIV/AIDS. As far as looming disasters go, it is almost impossible to come to terms with what this really means.
Unfortunately, conditions in Africa have, for the most part, deteriorated substantially over the last forty years. From north to south, almost every country in Africa has serious problems that would make it a certifiable basket case were it located almost anywhere else. There are many underlying reasons for these failures. The lingering effects of colonialism bears some of the responsibility as does lingering guilt over colonialism that allows some African governments to get away with things that would never be tolerated had they occured anywhere else.
PC foolishness also bears some of the blame, especially when wrapped up in the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” There is nothing the slightest bit racist about calling a spade a spade and demanding that African governments get their acts together, even if this involves cracking heads together. The world – especially those countries who donate foreign aid, owe it to the people of Africa. I, personally, would love to see the world get serious about bringing a bit – just a bit – of stability and order to some of Africa’s most desperate people. The world ought to start in Liberia and if that involves unilateral military action by the U.S. then so be it. The pointless horrors in West Africa have gone on far too long already.
Oh, and on the whole “should we celebrate his death?” thing, the proper response, in my opinion, is that it is a real shame that Idi Amin was such a thoroughly deranged person. I’m not happy that he’s dying, just sorry that he caused so much grief while living. Even offing Sadaam Hussein or ObL isn’t something to be happy about, it’s just an unfortunate necessity. We may be relieved that they’re finally gone but we shouldn’t ever be happy that it was necessary to kill them – sort of like Old Yeller.
P.S. The Coalition just confirmed that they nailed Uday and Qusay today. Yay!
Although I’m familiar with the non-racist origins of that phrase, this was quite possibly the worst possible sentence in which to use it.
I don’t think you’re getting Otto’s point, which I took to be that Otto was thinking that a lot of the people who posted to the Thurmond dead thread actually liked and approved of Thurmond but knew better than to try to defend him on his own “merits” so they settled for chiding folks for mocking the dead.
That’s why you’re seeing no posts about not mocking Idi Amin in death – nobody here LIKES Idi Amin (that we know of) so nobody will even chide people for gloating over the prospect of his death.
But people DID like Strom Thurmond, they just weren’t willing or able to defend the old sack of shit directly.
In short, I think Otto had a pretty good question, there.
Great post, Truth Seeker, even with the “spade” catchphrase. After all, it comes from playing cards.
I will happily celebrate his death. The reason I believe in the death penalty is that the best contribution some people can make to society is to stop living. If only he had realised this himself before coming to power.
Oh my goodness me! By all means, let’s pander to boorish ignorance rather than use a variant of an expression that has carried the precise meaning I wished to convey for at least 2500 years. I suppose I could have called a kneading-trough a kneading-trough but that wouldn’t have had quite the same punch, would it?
At least Zenster was less niggardly with his praise.
BTW, Zenster, AFAIK, it doesn’t come from playing cards, it comes from a 16th century mistranslation from Greek into Latin.
2 Questions: When and why did he drop the Dada and was it true that at one point there were so many bodies floating down the Nile River (?) that the crocodiles couldn’t eat them all as they passed?
Q
You could have called a hoe a hoe, but that would have made matters even worse.